Monte Morris is helping transform the Denver Nuggets bench in their improvement to one of the NBA's best second units.(Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)Getty

By a mile. By leaps and bounds. Beyond compare. Night and day.

At the rate the Denver Nuggets are going, none of these exuberant expressions seem too hyperbolic to fairly describe just how much the team has exceeded expectations through the first quarter of the 2018-19 season.

As things currently stand, the Nuggets are first in the Western Conference, 4-0 in the Northwest with wins against all four division rivals, and a net rating of 7.6 which is good for third-best in the NBA and best in the West, per NBA.com.

Entering training camp and the preseason after missing the postseason cut by a single game last April, Denver knew that the biggest mountain they would have to climb to ensure improving enough to make the playoffs in an increasingly cutthroat West which had also added LeBron James was shoring up their defense, which had wallowed in the bottom seven for the entirety of head coach Michael Malone’s tenure.

“We have to do better defensively,” Malone said after the first practice of training camp. “There has to be buy-in, there has to be commitment, there has to be improvement. And when we do that, and we do that consistently, we’ll be a very dangerous team.”

It seems unlikely that even Malone knew just how correct those words would prove to be, as the Nuggets, with a 103.8 defensive rating which is also third-best in the NBA, have largely built their season’s success on that end of the court.

But another aspect of Denver’s play last season which may have received less publicity, but also badly needed shoring up, was the performance of their second unit. According to NBA.com, the Nuggets bench was a lowly 20th in the league in plus-minus per 100 possessions at -2.1, but that only tells part of the tale.

In both the first and fourth quarters of games, that ranking plummeted to 28th at -5.1 and -4.1 respectively. As anyone who watched even a handful of Nuggets games last season will know, the pattern which repeated all too often for them was that after the bench began rotating in for the starters midway through the first quarter, they would quickly bleed out any lead that had been established. Then again late in third and early in fourth quarters, while Nikola Jokic and company were still resting up for their final push, the bench would allow deficits to get so far out of Denver’s control that the heroics necessary to come back and win would be nearly impossible.

The scoring and shooting efficiency from Denver’s bench in 2017-18 were at or above league average, sufficient enough to stay competitive in closely contested games. It was their defense allowing opponents to quickly run up the score which got them into holes too deep to climb their way out of.

If the Nuggets were truly going to make the kind of commitment Malone described to improving defensively, that change would by necessity have to extend to the bench as well.

Enter a fully healthy Mason Plumlee

Ever since being acquired for Jusuf Nurkic in a trade which at least initially looked like a big loser for Denver, Mason Plumlee had emerged as one of the team’s main scapegoats among a sector of fans who saw him as perhaps more of a liability than an asset, and certainly not worth the 3-year, $41 million contract the Nuggets extended him with last year.

At the beginning of this season, however, Plumlee made it known that he was having to “compensate physically” last season for core injuries which required surgical repair last April. “It feels good to just play free,” he shared following a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers, saying he was “moving well” and happy with where he was at.

And Plumlee indeed looks like a new man, with rejuvenated athleticism and seemingly unbridled energy which is allowing him to captain the bench defense as Paul Millsap has done (and then some) with the starters.

Here is a look at some of his blocks and steals from the first 22 games of this season:

The new, healthy version of Plumlee flies around the court, contesting, deflecting and blocking shots, jumping out into passing lanes to intercept bad passes, poking away and nabbing the ball from the players he’s guarding or helping on, and generally being a pain in opposing offenses’ neck.

One stat which has seen a clear jump for Plumlee is his steals, where according to CleaningTheGlass.com his steal percentage has nearly doubled from 1.4% to 2.7%, moving him up from the 73rd to an elite 97th percentile for his position. Notice in the video, however, how a fair number of these are actually a form of rim protection, as he swats and picks off lob attempts which would otherwise be setting up easy buckets. These types of plays which are largely predicated on athleticism were fewer, further between, and far less explosive last season, serving as the proof in the pudding that his return to full health has genuinely had a major positive impact on his performance.

Plumlee, of course, is not alone in coming off Denver’s bench. Of all 4-man lineups in the NBA with 200 or more minutes, the seventh-best in net rating – and the only one in the top 30 or more comprised solely of bench players – consists of Monte Morris, Malik Beasley, Trey Lyles and Mason Plumlee, at a 14.5 in 207 minutes which is simply absurd.

Monte Morris: A Veteran In Rookie's Clothing

This is in large part due to the superb point guard play of Morris, Plumlee’s new partner in crime, and veritable diamond in the rough discovery by president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, who picked him with the 51st pick in the 2017 draft.

Among all Nuggets players, per NBA.com the largest percentage of Morris’ error-free assists have been dished out to Plumlee, and the reverse is true as well. The two have formed an instant chemistry, operating primarily out of the pick-and-roll, and featuring as its centerpiece deadly lob which helps collapse defenses in the paint and open up opportunities for Morris to find Lyles, Beasley and others wide open on the 3-point arc.

The Nuggets’ lack of a true backup point guard last season was a major contributor to their bench woes, and in the absence of the injured Isaiah Thomas, Morris has not only stepped up admirably, but much like the team itself has exceeded all expectations.

His passing isn’t flashy; Morris is not there to showboat. What he does bring is a high degree of competency, a stellar basketball IQ accompanied by great court vision and decision-making, defensive effort which generally makes up for his slim frame, and most importantly, a wide array of well-delivered assists which put his teammates in prime position to get great open looks for easy baskets.

Here are just some of the assists from his impressive compendium this season so far:

The categorization used here is admittedly somewhat arbitrary (some “lobs,” for example, are also “pick-and-roll assists to the roll man”), but mainly meant to showcase just how wide-ranging and proficient Morris’ passing acumen is. For a player who is essentially a rookie (he played only three games last season), he delivers like a consummate veteran.

Finding the open 3-point shooter. This may seem somewhat vague as an assist “type,” but it may also be Morris’ best, and most valuable tool in his kit. With competent 3-point shooters like Lyles, Beasley and others from the starting lineup, and the movement-based offense Denver runs, many possessions present Morris with an opportunity to find at least one shooter open at the arc, and he rarely fails to get them the ball.

Lobs. As mentioned above, Plumlee is Morris’ primary target for lobs, and finishing them at a clip of 92.9% (13 of 14 this season) make the alley-oop his most efficient shot.

Pick-and-roll (PnR) assists to the roll man. When Morris isn’t running the PnR with Plumlee, he usually is doing so with Lyles. One bonus of dishing to an open Lyles at the arc (not shown in this video) is his ability to attack the close-out and take it to the rim. It’s just one more aspect of the Nuggets offense that makes them incredibly difficult to guard. As Morris has gotten more minutes playing alongside the starters, he has developed some solid chemistry with Millsap as well, which should be worth monitoring going forward.

Pick-and-roll assists to open shooters. The threat of lobs to Plumlee, as well as his and Lyles’ ability to roll effectively to the rim, often helps lure defenses inside and free up shooters around the arc. With his vision and timing, Morris does a great job of exploiting these opportunities to set up great open looks.

Assists in transition. Transition possessions are hectic, and it’s easy for inexperienced players (and even veterans, as seen with Plumlee in a few of the steals clips above) to be turnover prone when they get running on the break. But Morris seems to be always clearly thinking one or two moments ahead of his actions, mapping out where to best put the ball to optimize the chance to score, whether that’s a bounce pass ahead for a dunk or a kick-out for a corner three.

Interior passing. Morris doesn’t get the ball too often right around the rim, and when he does, he more often than not is driving in for a layup. But when he does get caught in the trees, he does a great job of finding the gaps to squeeze the ball through to set up his teammates for easy dunks and layups.

Entry passes. Unlike Denver’s assist leader Jokic, Morris doesn’t have the high to see directly over opposing defenses. But with some craftiness and court awareness, he’s often able to thread the needle and deliver the ball on the money.

Focusing here on Plumlee and Morris as the leaders and bookends of the Nuggets’ bench resurgence is in no way meant to disparage Lyles, Beasley, Torrey Craig or any other bench player who is making positive contributions (and they will surely all get their own column space in good time).

But the dynamic duo of Mason and Monte have clearly had the most potent impact so far as agents of change in transforming the Nuggets bench to one of the league’s best this season, and they do not show any sign of slowing down soon.

I have covered the Nuggets since 2005, writing for Forbes, BSN Denver, Roundball Mining Company, and my blog The Nuggets Den. “Passing makes two people happy. Scoring only makes one person happy.” --Nikola Jokic. You can find me on Twitter at @JoelRushNBA, where my views are...